The Great Influenza

Victims of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 suffered horrifying effects, including bleeding from the ears and nose, and they usually died. It killed more people in a year than the plagues of the Middle Ages did in a century. In the United States, where there weren´t enough coffins to house the increasing numbers of bodies, nearly seven times as many people died of influenza than were killed in the First World War. Award-winning historian John M. Barry tells the story of the worst flu epidemic in world history, including background on microbiology, immunology, and epidemiology.